The Norse are up by one with 20 seconds to go, Dan Gherezgher has the ball. Gherezgher goes downhill on the left side and stops abruptly.
He baits the defender, gaining space, he turns over his left shoulder and hoists up a shot. Fading away, the ball is in the air. “Clank,” “Swish,” the ball drops through the net with 15 seconds left as Truist Arena goes wild.
It all came down to defense as Donovan Oday pressed the ball, stealing it, ending the game on the free-throw line. The Norse won 67-62 on homecoming.
With this win, NKU moves to 15-11 overall and 7-8 in conference play, while the loss for Milwaukee pushes them to 9-17 overall and 5-10 in conference play.
Gherezgher was the star for the Norse, finishing with 22 points on 8-16 shooting from the field, going 5-10 from deep. He also recorded four rebounds, three assists, and a steal. Three other Norse gave support to Gherezgher as LJ Well (12 Points), Tae Dozier (11 Points) and Oday (10 Points) all had over double-digit scoring.
Milwaukee had an all-team effort with eight players recording a single point, and the two top scores, Aaron Franklin and Josh Dixon, putting up ten points apiece. Franklin had a double-double with ten points and ten rebounds.
In the first quarter, the Panthers had an early lead coming out of the gate, scoring on the first possession of the game with a Franklin layup. They built that lead up to seven points off a fast break and kept that lead all the way till the 7:30 mark.
At that minute mark, Dozier hit a big-time three to tie it up at 18. The rest of the quarter swung in the Norse’s favor, as they went on a 10-5 run to end the quarter on top, going into halftime, 36-31.
The second quarter started as a battle, with no team making a leap, until the
Norse went on a 7-1 run to take the biggest lead of the game at 13, 54-41. Then NKU went cold for seven minutes, letting Milwaukee go on a 12-0 run to come back within one.
The Panthers’ Chandler Jackson had six of those 12 points to help them on that run. The game then became a battle as neither team gave an edge, as the Norse tight-roped to the 67-62 win.
The Nose went on a five-game losing streak before this win against Milwaukee. Head Coach of NKU Darrin Horn believes that this win was nice, but they just look forward to March.
“The goal is always to continue to get better. Obviously, probably number one is winning. But as you guys heard me say 1000 times, 0 and 32 and three games or four games in March, whatever it takes. Versus 32 and 0 and not getting there, I’ll take March, and so our focus has been continuing to get better,” Horn said.
Horn reached his 300 career win mark with the win on homecoming. He believes that he is very fortunate, but they just look forward to the next win.
“I’ve been really blessed to have a lot of really good players and great staff around me and very fortunate to have three different athletic directors and presidents give me an opportunity to do this,” Horn said.